The present inventive subject matter relates to the imaging arts. It finds particular application in conjunction with ink jet image rendering devices, and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that it is also amenable to other like applications.
Fluid ejector systems, such as drop-on-demand liquid ink jet printers, utilize various methods to eject fluids, including but not limited to piezoelectric, acoustic, and thermal methods. These systems often include a printhead having an ink ejecting face that faces a recording medium, such as a sheet of paper. Included in the printhead is an array of fluid ejectors from which drops of fluid are ejected towards a recording medium, substantially normal thereto.
In a printing operation, commonly, at least one of the printhead and recording medium are advanced such that they move relative to one another while the fluid ink is being ejected. Typically, the relative movement between the printhead and recording medium is along a so called fast scan direction which is substantially parallel to the plane of the recording medium and substantially perpendicular to the array of ejectors which are typically aligned in a so called slow scan direction. In some applications, a so called wide array printhead is employed where the ejectors are aligned along substantially the entire width of the medium which is typically advanced unidirectionally past the printhead. See, for example, the page width fluid ejector printer described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,192,959, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Typically, for each ejector, a channel or capillary is defined to contain the fluid ink. Propelling pulses are used to cause the drops of fluid to be expelled at desired times from orifices or nozzles that are located on the ink ejecting face of the printhead and that are defined at one end of each of the channels. A supply container supplies the fluid to the plurality of channels.
For example, in a thermal fluid ejection system, the propelling pulses are produced, for example, by resistive heaters that are selectively energized. A heater is typically provided for each of the channels. Each heater is typically individually addressable to heat and vaporize fluid in one of the channels thereby ejecting a drop from the nozzle of the channel coupled to the addressed heater.
Typically, in addition to the main drop formed and ejected, a satellite droplet is also formed and ejected. For example, this phenomena is described in a published U.S. Patent Application to Freire, et al., Pub. No. U.S. 2003/0179258, incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
The velocity of the satellite droplet is generally smaller than the velocity of the main drop. Accordingly, the relative movement between the recording medium and the printhead tends to result in the lagging satellite droplet landing on the recording medium in front of the main drop relative to the printhead fast scan direction. When the satellite droplets land on the recording medium outside the landing of their corresponding main drop, undesirable image artifacts can arise. For example, edges in the rendered image may appear ragged, or the effective area of ink coverage may be undesirably increased.
Accordingly, a new and improved apparatus and/or method for ink jet printing is disclosed that overcomes the above-referenced problems and others.